Quotes and speeches of the month

Welcome to this website devoted to the art of speeches in Europe today. Logos, pathos, ethos brings you some of the best quotes, speeches, and rhetorical tips. As its name suggests, this multilingual website is inspired by the long-standing European tradition of the art of speeches stretching back over twenty-five centuries. It seeks to shine a spotlight on speeches that matter on the European stage today.

Logos Pathos Ethos, April 2019

Dear speech-fans and -friends,

With the European elections in just two months, it is topical that this month’s harvest offers a selection of speeches with a special focus on building a rapport with the audience. You’ll find your monthly selection of the best speeches and quotes below.

Best wishes,

Great speeches,

Isabelle

Building a rapport with this audience, in this place, for this event

- Here in Lund, Sweden

In 1962, before many of us were even born, a young law graduate from the United States arrived here in Lund. The topic of her studies – civil procedure in Sweden – wasn’t one that seemed likely to change the world. And yet the things that Ruth Bader Ginsburg saw here in Sweden really did end up changing the lives of millions of women.

I was born in the year that the Berlin wall was built. Our son Marc was born in the year the Berlin wall came down. Our son Max was born in the year 2004, when Europe became one and whole again by the enlargement with the Central and Eastern European countries. I say this because for a global audience this perhaps seems to be just a bit of history, but for me it is my life.

How to own the room - Women and the art of brilliant speaking

Viv Groskop

Pay attention to the first two words of the title: “how to”: they imply that there is a way, that you can learn. And indeed, the idea that we – women, but “they don’t have the monopoly of insecurity”, so actually everybody, really – can learn “how to be powerful in (our) speaking is at the heart of this book.
Viv Groskop invites u[...]Read more

Quotation of the day

« Far too many leaders have refused to listen.
Far too few have acted with the vision the science demands.
We see the results.
-- Antonio Guterres, Remarks on climate change, 10 September 2018... »

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Logos Pathos Ethos, March 2019

Dear speech-fans and -friends,

How to organise ideas and assemble words so that the speech achieves something: bond with the audience, make sense out of the flow of events, and call to action?

With the Brexit deadline in just one month and climate change’s awareness growing and growing, great speeches are not only welcome; they are necessary. You’ll find a selection of the best speeches and quotes below.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have five grandchildren. Four of them are in primary school. The youngest is only one year old.

Perhaps that’s why the following story struck such a particular chord. I was reading a BBC article about the recent climate demonstrations here in Belgium. Groups of primary schoolchildren were marching with their grandparents. One child held up a hand-written sign. It said: “2080: what are polar bears?”

Those habits of reasoned debate which you teach are exactly what Europe needs today.

Democracy has always been about feelings, as well as reason. If we forget about feeling, our politics becomes bloodless, detached from the lives of the very people it should serve. But if we forget about reason, we lose our ability to find the solutions that make their lives better.

Logos Pathos Ethos, January 2019

Dear speech-fans and -friends,

Happy New Year!

That 2019 will be happy is by no means a foregone conclusion. Stakes are high (for our non-European readers, 2019 will see European elections resulting in a new European Parliament and a new European Commission; and one of our Member States will decide how to leave the Union) and challenges are huge, as this past month selection shows once again: populism and the defense of our fundamental values, climate change (with the COP 24 speeches), terrorism and sexual violence (with the Nobel peace prize lectures). All call for speeches that identify clearly the issue, show progress and give hope, and empower in strong calls for action. This selection of speeches and quotes shines a spotlight on a few such speeches.

So, to start well this new year, enjoy the reading below and, more than ever :

Your Majesties, Distinguished Members of the Nobel Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends of peace,

The challenge is clear. It is within our reach.

For all Sarahs, for all women, for all men and children of Congo, I call upon you not only to award this Nobel Peace Prize to my country’s people, but to stand up and together say loudly: “The violence in the DRC, it’s enough! Enough is enough! Peace, now!”

Logos Pathos Ethos, December 2018

Dear speech-fans and -friends,

Depth and gravity marked the speeches delivered this past month as Europe commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the end of the first world war, the eightieth anniversary of the Kristallnacht, or looked ahead to global challenges, with the Katowice COP 24 just starting,

These speeches typically call for good lines, as you can see below in our monthly selection of what good rhetoric is.

On a lighter tone but as relevant, the latest book in the Bibliography section provides useful insights on what audiences can get – or not – from the use of numbers and statistics in speeches.

Best wishes,

Great speeches,

Isabelle

I want to say this with all the force I have in me today,

because the coming night we will be thinking about the 80th anniversary of the Kristallnacht in Germany.

And this is for me the ultimate symbol that if you just put enough effort into it, as Hitler and Goebbels did, in a couple of years' time, even in a sophisticated society, you can manipulate people's anxieties and fear and instrumentalize it to such a degree that you can dehumanise part of your population, especially if you can say that they are different. This is what happened in Germany between 1933 and 1938.

Ten years ago, in 2008, Mr. Lazare Ponticelli, the last known French veteran of the Great War, died at the age of 110. Every year on 11 November, Mr. Ponticelli, an Italian immigrant, honoured the promise he had made to his comrades who had died too young on the battlefield. He used to visit his local war memorial to remember them. Right at the end of his life, he had finally agreed to talk to schoolchildren about his experience. He always began with these words: “First of all, I never knew why we were fighting …”